Onaway excited for tough test against Battle Creek St. Philip

Wednesday

Nov 14, 2012 at 9:49 PMNov 14, 2012 at 9:51 PM

The Cardinals (48-3-4) will have plenty of momentum as they head into their matchup with the top-ranked Tigers, who have suffered just two losses on the season. The winner of the contest will face the winner of the Mendon-Beal City matchup, which is slated to start at 3:45 p.m on Friday. The winners will meet in the state final on Saturday at 10 a.m., where the game will be televised on Fox Sports Detroit.

Jared Greenleaf

By JARED GREENLEAFsports@cheboygantribune.comONAWAY — It's not too often the Onaway volleyball has been labeled a longshot this season. It wasn't until their MHSAA Class D quarterfinal matchup against Crystal Falls Forest Park where they were truly the underdog in a match. Luckily for them, they played the role of being written off to perfection with a dominating 3-0 win over the Trojans, which sent them to the state semifinals in Battle Creek. But if the Cardinals were a longshot to win on Tuesday, their next task might be as close to impossible as it gets. In the end, that's probably the way they like it. Onaway will have their most difficult task this season of trying to knock off the six-time defending Class D champion Battle Creek St. Philip Tigers inside Kellogg Arena at 2 p.m. on Friday. "They know that this team (St. Philip) they're going against is supposed to beat us. Anybody who knows anything about volleyball would pick St. Philip to win 10 times out of 10, but we also know the pressure's on them to repeat," Onaway coach Steve Watson said on Wednesday. "They're expecting to win, and nobody's expecting us to win, but we're going to try to use that to our advantage because if we go down there and get beat, that's what everybody thought was going to happen. We go down there and put pressure on them, and maybe get a game from them, then all of a sudden the momentum's going to swing the other way."The Cardinals (48-3-4) will have plenty of momentum as they head into their matchup with the top-ranked Tigers, who have suffered just two losses on the season. The winner of the contest will face the winner of the Mendon-Beal City matchup, which is slated to start at 3:45 p.m on Friday. The winners will meet in the state final on Saturday at 10 a.m., where the game will be televised on Fox Sports Detroit. "We've got a very tough job to do, but the girls feel like they're up for it, and they want to prove that they're a top caliber team in the state of Michigan," Watson said. Having the opportunity of playing inside Kellogg Arena is also something the Cardinals are relishing heading into Friday's matchup. "As far as being in a bigger environment, I don't think that's going to play much a role," Watson said of playing inside the large arena. "They've been unbelievably steady this year regardless of circumstances that have come their way. You would think that they're 20 years old with the way they handle themselves.""We try not to worry about the distractions. We worry about the 15 girls that are on this team, we worry about what happens inside the lines, and nothing else matters. It's a matter of surrounding environment, home or away, whether we have fans or don't have fans, we worry about ourselves, we're going to play as a team. Basically that's my focal point as a team, I'm not going to give the huge rah-rah speech because most of the motivation is already there, so it's a matter of what we need to do, and to continue to rely on each other as teammates and go forward."For the Cardinals, nothing will come easy against a loaded Tigers' squad, led by 2012 Michigan Miss Volleyball Amanda McKinzie, who is one of the top offensive players in the state. McKinzie, a Virginia Tech recruit, has played a monster role in helping lead the Tigers to three state championships in her career. While McKinzie is the star for the Tigers, Watson said stopping the entire St. Philip offense will be a major challenge in itself. "They've got plenty of good players, I know they can spread the ball around and hit from anywhere they want," Watson said. "We're going to go there and expect to be attacked from every angle, and we're going to try to force them into playing some bad defense, and that's how we're going to have to try to stay in the match and try to fight with them and battle with them. If you're playing any team whose got Miss Volleyball on their team, you assume that player is going to get kills. What you have to do is try to attack their team as a whole and make them give us some easy attacks that we can deal with."